


Ever Since We Met

by wordsbymeganmichael



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Best Friends, Comfort, F/M, Lots of drinking, Modern AU, cheating neal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-04-23 20:54:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14340708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsbymeganmichael/pseuds/wordsbymeganmichael
Summary: When Liam and Killian Jones left the military, they decided that the thing they most want to do is open a bar overlooking Boston Harbor. But when he is reunited with the enigma of Emma Swan, Killian realizes just how much in love with her he is - though he is too late, and she is already engaged to Neal Cassidy, a man who is nothing but unfaithful to Emma, and she is the only one who does not know it. Who will she turn to when everything she knows crumbles beneath her?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been in my head for a very long time now, but I finally allowed it to come to fruition, partially because of having more free time and partially because of this post: http://andhewonherheart.tumblr.com/post/172447993983/cs-naval-beauty-au-killian-jones-and-belle  
> 

“Emma!” Liam’s voice wakes her from a sleep she did not know she was in, opening the door as she gets her bearings back in order, and she snaps her head up, looking around the small office to find what awoke her. 

“Liam, uh, hi,” she says, wiping the sleep from her eyes, then turns her attention towards the pile of paperwork that was apparently not exciting enough to stop her from dozing off. 

“Long night, I assume? I always tell you that it’s not the best idea to work the morning shift after you close the night before, but you never listen to me.”

“It was not because of work, I assure you that.”

“Then what seems to be the matter, love? You’ve been off all day.” Liam takes a seat in the chair next to the desk, looking over the paperwork at his friend. 

“I’m just… tired, is all,” she says, which is only half the truth. She really had not been sleeping well, spending too much time in her own head, and though she trusted Liam more than almost anyone else she has ever known, that was not something she was planning on sharing with him, at least not for the time being. “I was home later than normal, and then Lily decided she wanted to go out at 6 this morning, and when I told her to go back to sleep instead, she threw up all over my bed. By the time I had taken care of that and gone back to bed, one of the neighbor’s car alarms went off, which woke up all the dogs in the neighborhood, and it was over half an hour before that whole ordeal was over. And then it was time for Neal to go to work anyway, and I usually can’t get back to sleep after he leaves, so by then, I was out of luck.”

“Emma, you could have called and told me this. I would have given you the day off, at least until the night shift, so you could catch up on some sleep.”

“I’m fine, Liam, really. I’ve done more with less sleep. Hell, I’ve gotten by with none.”

“That’s besides the point. I would have helped you if you’d have only asked.”

But that had always been her problem, her weakness. Growing up in the foster system had taught her a lot of things, but asking for help had never been one of them, had always been something that she refused to do simply because it was never something she was able to do as a kid. She had been alone, literally helpless in so many situations, and it was a curse that followed her through adulthood. 

“Did you need me for something?” she asks after a wordless moment passes between them. 

“Oh, yeah.” He stands up, straightening the end of his button-down shirt. “Neal is here, he wants to know where you are.”

Emma sighs, setting her head back down on the desk, unconsciously running the pad of her thumb over the stones of the ring on her left hand. She loves Neal, though she can’t help but feel, deep down, that something will go wrong, that she should not put too much faith in a future that she can’t see. But she can’t blame Neal - like asking for help, her lack of faith for the future is something deeply ingrained in her, something that she learned while in the foster system, while on the streets, in a life where she was sometimes unable to see into the next day, nonetheless as far into the future as a long term relationship requires of her. 

“Emma?” Liam asks, tilting his head to look at her across the desk. 

Lifting her head up again, she starts paging through the pile of papers in front of her. “Yeah, tell him I’ll be down in a little. I, uh, still have some paperwork to take care of.” 

“Go home, Emma. You can finish the paperwork tomorrow.”

“We both know that’s not going to happen. I told you I would finish it today, and I stay true to my promises.” When she smiles up a Liam, he smiles back, patting her shoulder as he walks past her and out of the office. 

Downstairs, however, is  _ not  _ all smiles. Neal sits at one of the small tables against the wall, sipping slowly at his beer, his eyes fixed across the room. Killian Jones, standing behind the bar, glares up at him, angrily washing and stacking pint glasses. When he follows Neal’s eyes across the room, he lands on a tall, dark-haired woman that he has seen in here a few times before, though he does not seem to remember her name. Even with the pounding of the music, he can feel his heartbeat pounding in his ears, the grinding of his teeth, his jaw. 

Killian has been through a lot: raised on the streets of London by Liam; moving to Boston to find a better life; ten years in the navy, most of it served with his brother, two tours overseas. He has seen a lot of pain, a lot of loss and death, and, more than anything else, a lot of hatred. But nothing has prepared him for Neal Cassidy - or, more appropriately, for Emma Swan, Neal’s fiance. He first met her before he joined the military, and even then, she was the most beautiful thing Killian had ever seen - and she still is. He thought about her almost every day when he was overseas, but he had never allowed himself to tell her how he feels, and when he finally returned home, he found it was too late - she had gotten together with Neal, and there was nothing he could do about it.

But that was not why he hated him. Working at the bar that Neal frequents, Killian found himself on multiple occasions - present moment included - watching Neal check out other girls, buy them drinks, flirt with them, until he sees Emma walk through the door from the back, when he changes his mask and acts like nothing has ever happened. Every time, Emma smiles back at him, her perfect smile that he has only ever hoped would be saved for him, completely unaware of anything being wrong. And then, to no avail, he would  _ feel  _ his rush of anger, the boiling of his blood, the pounding of hatred in his heart. 

Emma deserved more than Neal, more than a man who only had eyes for her when she was in the room - but when she was not, he had eyes for literally any woman that would return his smile. He watches this happen, as it has happened before: the woman meeting Neal’s eyes across the bar, smiling at him. He watches as Neal returns her smile, then holds up his beer to her in a greeting. And he watches her walk across the room to join him at the table. 

Liam claps him on the shoulder, pulling his attention away from the two of them, huddled close together at the table. “I tried to get her to come down as quickly as I could, but she fell asleep on the desk and insisted she needed to finish her paperwork.”

“Of course she did. Bloody tenacious lass, she always was.”

“Why don’t you just tell her, Killian?”

“I don’t - I really don’t know, brother. And it’s not like I have any proof that he’s done anything, especially past just flirting. But he doesn’t deserve her. She deserves someone that will stay true to her, and only her, whether she is watching or not.”

“Someone like you?”

Killian feels himself redden, and he runs his fingers through his hair. “I mean, why the hell not? I would at least know what I have when I have her, and you can be bloody sure I would never let her go.”

“She’ll never know if you don’t tell her.”

“Aye, and you’re one to talk, Liam,” Killian jokes with a smile, nudging his arm and gesturing across the room to the pool table, where the center of Liam’s affections stands in the corner, chalking her cue.  

“We’re not talking about me and Belle.”

“Why not? It’s the same conversation, isn’t it? Pining over a girl that doesn’t know how you feel?”

Liam turns away from him, leaving him behind the bar to go join Belle for a game of pool. 

Killian continues his side work, polishing glasses, organizing bottles, but he cannot silence the piercing rage that fills his ears, a rage that only intensifies every time he turns his attention back towards Neal, who has slung his arm over the back of the woman's chair, his lips inches away from her ear to talk to her. After what seems like forever to Killian and his pounding heart, Emma finally appears next to him, though he is too focused across the room to notice, and when she speaks to him, he is startled by it. 

“So, what have I missed?” When he snaps his head towards her and sees her smile, a smile that continues all the way through her bright green eyes, he wants nothing more than to tell her, nothing more than to reveal all he has come to know. But every time he finds the opportunity - which are few and far between, knowing her in what have mostly become public circumstances - something stops him, some sort of brutal integrity within him that knows if he found her in a time of need, he would also have to be the one who is there for her, the one who soothes her anger and helps repress her grief. And he is too principled a man to allow himself to be the one that hurts her and the one that heals her, all at the same time.

But he would give everything he has to welcome her into his calming embrace when she does finally learn the truth about Neal. 


	2. Chapter 2

The night passes by slowly, Killian’s blood settling at only a slow simmer, but he still keeps an eye on Neal throughout the night. He has moved from a table to the bar, a position that calls him out less if Emma were to look over and see him talking to other women. Emma, however, is distracted elsewhere, across the room with Belle, Liam, and a few other friends hanging around the pool table. It started with Belle versus Graham, a very laid-back, simple game; then Liam joined Belle, and August Graham. They stayed with these teams for a while, still only playing for fun, not really caring who wins. 

But when Emma sauntered over, throwing her blonde curls over her shoulder, everything changed. Emma has never played anything in her life unless it was to win, and a friendly game of pool is no different. While he is sure the drinks he continues to make for the crew have something to do with it, he knows that most of the loud banter that has started to take over from the billiard room has more to do with Emma and her competitive disposition, especially when he hears her whooping and cheering over the rest of the noise. 

_ Gods  _ everything about her is perfect, and not even in a physical beauty sort of sense, but in  _ literally everything that she does.  _ She is the only one who takes all of the liquor bottles off the wall and wipes them down, the only one who folds all her rags perfectly in thirds and hangs them off the handles of the fridges to dry, a position that he has come to acknowledge as his favorite place for them; all of her paperwork in the office is pristine, organized so thoroughly that it makes his job all the easier. Even her shooting stance, the way she holds herself while aiming her cue across the table and taking her shot, is perfect, a well-balanced and overly-practiced dance between her and the balls, where she has memorized their every move, made them her own. 

And he is honest-to-goodness, beyond the shadow of a doubt, head-over-heels in love with her in every way possible. 

 

Somehow Neal gets away with it again: the dark-haired girl that he spent most of the night flirting with is in the bathroom when Emma walks up behind him, resting her hands on his shoulders, and kisses him on the cheek. “You almost ready to go home?” she asks, and his eyes shoot up to Killian for some reason, leaning against the counter, though close enough to them to hear what she has said. 

Neal turns his head to her over his shoulder, smiling at her, but hops off his barstool like it is suddenly on fire. “Yeah, I’m actually… I’m ready right now, if you are.” Killian does not miss the way his head turns to the bathroom door for a moment, or just how quickly he ushers Emma out of the bar, terrified to be caught in his own game - though if he truly were that scared, maybe he should not play it in the first place.

At almost the exact moment that the door closes behind them, the bathroom door swings open, and it does not take long for her to realize that Neal has left, though Killian is the one she questions about it.

“Hey, uh, did you see where he went? The guy I was taking to?”

And though he immediately regrets it, wants to spread the truth so far around the bar that Emma would hear it by the time she came in the next night, Killian covers for the bastard: “No, ma’am. He must have just left.”

She looks sad, defeated, but it is nothing compared to the anger raging up inside him, a lump in his throat that he can not seem to get rid of for the rest of the night. Around 1:30 in the morning, half an hour to last call, Killian still feels the tenseness in his jaw, the pounding in his head, but he does not realize just how bad it might be until he snaps the side of a wine glass while polishing it. Liam is already standing next to him, the pool games long over, but when he smiles over at him and Killian does not smile back, Liam knows something is still wrong. Taking the glass out of his hand with a bar rag, Liam pats his brother on the back. 

“Go home, Killian,” he says. “I’ll finish here.”

“Liam, I - “

“No,  _ go home _ . I can’t afford to have to breaking anything else in your anger. Besides, I haven’t worked all night. I can close for you.”

As much as Killian wants to argue with him, wants to insist that he is level-headed enough to finish out his shift, knows that Liam is right. 

But his head never stops spinning. Not in his car on the way home; not sitting on the couch with a glass of Kraken in his hand, scrolling through Facebook and watching reruns of Sports Center, his little black cat with shining green eyes, Tink, asleep on his lap; and not when he finally peels himself off the leather and forces himself to go to bed, trying to block out all thoughts, but nothing works. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees  _ her _ , her stunning green eyes, her perfect smile. He sees her making drinks, playing pool, hunched over the desk in the bar office doing bloody paperwork. 

He sees her in his arms, asleep on his chest, wrapped up and sweating in his sheets. 

Finally, he drifts off, but his head is still filled with images of Emma Swan, images that continue to haunt him through his dreams, the ghost of a future that he can only dream of. He jumps awake with a start, finding himself wrapped up in his sheets, sweating and alone, the bright light of the morning shining through his curtains and spilling across the sheets. 

 

Similarly, a few blocks away, Emma wakes from a nightmare, one deeply rooted in her childhood on the street, being left alone, left for dead, finding herself completely lost in a never-ending maze of dark alleys, dead ends, dreary, stormy nights - and a nightmare that she has experienced on an almost daily basis for as long as she can remember. 

When she awakes, she is just as alone, the only sounds beyond the pounding of her heart the whooshing of the wind against the house and its creaking and groaning under the pressure. Neal is gone, though that is not a surprise to her, since he is already out of the house by the time she wakes up most mornings. 

Taking a deep breath, she tries to calm the screaming sound of her blood rushing through her ears, the echoing of her pounding heart. She finally grounds herself, releasing the sheets gripped between her fists, and lets her feet find the floor, the hardwood cool against her skin. But even in the shower, the hot water flowing over her, she cannot rid herself of the nightmare, cannot shake it off and begin her day. It has been years since she has had to worry about living on the street, years since the last night she spent in an alley or in the line of a food bank or soup kitchen, but the nightmares still haunt her. 

She goes through her regular morning schedule: shower then coffee, and even squeezes in a quick run before her kickboxing class, tries to focus on something,  _ anything  _ other than the darkness that has enveloped her mind suddenly, a darkness which, on any other day, she can shrug off and move on from. 

And then she looks at the calendar: April 19, the day her mother died and she entered the foster system. Somewhere deep down, she must have known this, though she cannot figure out how she did not realize it earlier. Hopping on the bus, she heads towards the suburb she spent the first six years of her life in, though she goes a few blocks out of her way to avoid the street she lived on, a street that, on better days, would have flooded her with the best memories of her life. But in her current state, with too much sadness and anguish washing over her with the rain, she cannot put herself through.

For once, she is thankful for the rain. Without it, there would be people on the streets: runners out with their dogs, parents taking their kids around the block or to the park, or even just people taking out their trash, sitting on their porches - people that would try to talk to her, something that she is not sure she could take on a day like today. They have seen her before, since she has tried her best to visit her mother every few weeks, and usually, she will reply to them, trying to pass on the kindness that her mother always tried to put before everything else. 

But today, she is not in the mood. Today, she justs wants to wallow in the rain, feeling her sadness in a way that she has not allowed herself to do for years. And, sitting on the wet ground in front of her mother’s grave, she finally allows herself to cry, to release the tears she has held in for far too long. 


	3. Chapter 3

By the time she heads home, the rain has let up, and when she reaches her apartment, the sun has even started to peek out from between the clouds. Still soaking from the rain, the first thing she does is jump in the shower again, if only to rid herself from the chill that has pierced her all the way down to her bones. 

But when she sits on her bed, towel wrapped around her torso, she realizes just how tired the day has made her. She does not know if it is the crying, the overwhelming sadness, or the walk across the city in the rain, but she falls onto her back and, before she realizes what is happening, is fast asleep. 

Her alarm goes off two hours later, telling her she has twenty minutes to get to work - and she remembers that it’s Saturday, and of course she has to go to work. As quickly as she can, she throws on her favorite pair of jeans and a black tee with her black boots, ties her hair back in a ponytail, and runs out the door. 

Standing at the bus stop, the woman sitting next to her tells her that the bus is running late - too late for her liking, just as-of course - it starts to rain again, though just a light spritzing. 

Looking down at her watch, she mumbles a quick, “Damn, of  _ course  _ it is. What a fucking day.” Before the woman has the chance to answer, Emma takes off. It’s only ten blocks to the bar, ten blocks that she does not mind walking when she has more time and more sunshine, but today, it seems her only choice. 

Pushing the doors open before her, her entry to the bar is a little more dramatic than she was hoping for. For once, she is thankful for how empty the room is, though it is not a normal wish for her friend. Liam and Killian are behind the bar, mumbling between each other and laughing, polishing glasses and filling everything for the night. Robin Locksley and Will Scarlett are on the opposite end of the bar, next to the kitchen, day drinking with half-eaten cheesesteaks in front of them. When she swings the doors open, all four of them turn to her, eyes wide. 

“Emma?” Liam is the first to speak, and something in his voices makes her feel like something is wrong, almost like she is being interrogated. 

“Yes, I know, I’m sorry I’m late, okay? I just - I’ve not been having the best day, and I finally fell asleep - “

“No, Emma, that’s… that’s not what he meant.” Killian’s voice is softer, one of the only things that has ever been able to calm her down, but when he takes a better look at her, he has a few more questions. “Did you walk here?”

“Yes, I did. The bus was late, and I was late. But what’s wrong? What’s with all the questions?”

“You’re - well, love, you’re here. I thought you were going to take the day off.”

“Why?” Her question stuns him, and he takes the few steps between them, the only thing between them the two feet of bar. 

“Because of your mother?” 

“It’s been over twenty years, Killian. I’m more than capable of coming to work on the anniversary of her death.” She tries to keep her voice calm, but despite her words, she feels herself losing control again. 

He leans across the bar, closing the space between them even more, and when he speaks, his voice is no more than a whisper, hopefully soft enough to cover his words from the other three in the bar over the soft music in the background. 

“Well, love, forgive me for saying so, but you don’t look as put together as you are trying to make yourself sound.”

Damn Killian, knowing her well enough for long enough to see through even the thickest of her masks - but she knows he is right.

“Well, I appreciate that,” she says louder, smiling up at him as she takes a seat at the bar. “Thank you, Killian.” Reaching over the bar, she pulls a menu from the stack, looking it over. “But can I at least grab a bite to eat before I head home? I haven’t eaten all day.”

Finally, Killian smiles back at her, and Liam steps behind her, clapping him on the shoulder. “Liam, do you think we could get this lovely lady a burger?”

“Aye, I think we could make that happen.”

Emma sets the menu down in front of her, smiling up at the brothers for just a moment before Liam walks away. “You know how I like it, right?”

He is blown away by her smile, by the laughter in her voice - by how strong she is trying to be. “Aye, love, that I do.”

He turns away from her, letting out a deep sigh, and puts her order in the computer, then pours her a glass of Jameson and places it in front of her.

She wraps her hands around it, covering it with her hands, then turns her bright green eyes up to him. For a moment, she does not say anything, just sits there staring at him, but he can tell that her head is spinning, trying to figure  _ something  _ out. When she still does not say anything, just lets the silence between them continue, he is the one that speaks up, reaching out to cover one of her hands with his, and realizes just how cold her hands are. 

“What’s wrong, Emma?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know that look, love. There is something happening that you cannot figure out. You can tell me what it is, or you can keep it to yourself. Just don’t let it take you over, okay?”

When she smiles at him, even though it is just the corner of her mouth, a sign that he is reaching her even through whatever madness is fumbling around in her mind, he can feel the pounding of his heart in his chest again, another sign that he is in too deep to get out when it comes to Emma Swan - but this time, it does not terrify him. This time, he knows that he has worked for this smile, at a time when he does not think she would have removed her mask for anyone else but him. He knows her well enough to see her weaknesses, and tries his best to cover for her when it comes to them, fully aware of how much she hates them, how she would trade anything in the world if it meant removing. No, this smile is his, fully earned. And for right now, it is enough. 

Emma quickly finishes the glass, not realizing how thirsty walking all day in the rain can make someone, and slurps up a glass of water before moving on to the second, scrolling through her phone and appreciating the quietness of the bar at the moment, barely any sound over the mumbling of Robin and Will in the corner, the soft sound of the old country music Liam prefers just loud enough to almost hear. 

Before long, her burger is done, and Killian sets it in front of her with a smile and a bottle of ketchup, casting out a conversation hook that he hopes will catch her. 

“How did today go, love? Tell me you didn’t walk all the way there in the rain.”

When she looks up at him, she is surprised, though only for a moment. “Sometimes I forget just how well you remember things, Jones.” 

He can’t help but flash her a quick smile, lasting only for a moment, but continues to push the subject, hoping for… well, he’s not quite sure what he is hoping for from her, but he knows it’s  _ something _ . “It’s hard to forget something this bloody important. You at least used an umbrella, right?”

“I’m not an umbrella kind of person.” Her voice is serious, but she smiles at him, taking a big bite of her burger. 

“But it’s been raining all day. Did you really walk from the bus stop to the cemetery in the rain?”

The year before Killian was deployed for the first time, when they were the closest they have ever been, Emma took him there with her, not on the anniversary of her death, but when she was just feeling down and needed to visit her mother. He knew all of the stories, had heard bits and pieces about the day she had died, but walking to the cemetery that day, Emma had told him the whole thing, as much as she had been able to piece together from her memories over the years. 

How Mary Margaret had grown sick, had told Emma so, but refused to do anything about it. Emma knew that sick people should go to the doctor, tried to convince her mother to do just that, but for some reason - a reason Emma had yet to figure out, even over twenty years later - she refused treatment, and it was not long before she passed. 

Emma had been the one that found her, coming home after a beautiful spring day of playing with the kids in the park. Ashley, the neighbor had picked her up, knowing Mary Margaret could use the day to rest, and rest she did. Emma thought she was asleep, and when she could not wake her, she went back over to Ashley’s. When the neighbor couldn’t wake her, either, she called the police, but they were all too late. 

Emma lived with Ashley for a few days, was allowed to pack a backpack and stay through her mother’s funeral before protective services came and took her away. Twelve years in the foster system, in and out of houses, but not finding anywhere that was as much of a home as she had with her mother. When she was 18, they had to release her, and she spent quite a few years on the streets, making a few friends along the way - and among those friends was Killian. 

By the time she met Killian, Liam had already joined the navy and returned from his first deployment, and had sent Killian all the money he made that he did not need overseas, which was most of it. When she met Killian the first day, something between them clicked, and they became fast friends. A few days later, before he even got the chance to consult Liam, he told her that he had almost saved enough money for an apartment, and offered her one of the rooms until his brother returned from war. 

At first, Emma did not want to take his offer. She did not  _ ask _ him for help, but it was still difficult for her to accept help from people, even someone that she seemed to get along with so well. But it was winter, and it was damned cold, so she accepted, and she and her backpack moved in. Having an address gave her the ability to to find a job waitressing, and, after buying herself new clothing that she desperately needed, she began paying rent, even though Killian insisted she did not. 

He did not know it then, but this was when he started to fall in love with her. 

 

It is about two hours before she heads home, after playing a few rounds of pool with Robin and Will. Thankfully, the rain has ceased, at least for now, and her walk home was almost… peaceful, the sun warming up her cold skin, the cold sidewalk, the cold countenance of the world. 

Neal’s car is parked out front, finally home from work, and she is excited - it has been too long since they have had even most of an evening together. When she swings the door open, though, the house is quiet. The television is not on, he is not moving around downstairs - the lights are not even on. 

_ Maybe he went for a walk. _

She hangs her jacket on the hook by the door and realizes that, even almost three hours after she left in the first place, she is  _ still  _ wet, and she realizes just how much she wants to peel her jeans off and replace them with soft, warm,  _ dry  _ pajama pants. 

Unlike the rest of the house, the lights in the bedroom are turned on, and she sees Neal first, but by the time she recognizes the terrified look on his face, it is too late: she has realized just what she has found just as she sees the dark hair of his companion peek out from under the comforter. 

Within moments, she is in a rage, stuffing clothing and necessities into a backpack. “What the ever living  _ fuck _ , Neal! I give you everything - my time, my heart, my income to pay for this damned apartment - and this is how you repay me?! How long has this been going on?” He opens his mouth to speak, but she does not give him the chance. “ _ Fuck you _ , Neal. So many people have told me that there was something about you that they didn’t like, something that makes you untrustworthy, and I was stupid enough to ignore them! I told them they were just being stupid, but apparently I was the stupid one!” She picks up the first thing she can find, a paperback book on the shelf next to her, and hurls it at his head. 

“Damn it, Emma, come on!” he yells, ducking out of the way of her projectiles as they continue: a sneaker, the remote control for the television, another book, and a picture of the two of them from a few summers before, which shatters against the wall, showering them in pieces of glass. 

“God damn you, Neal Cassidy.” Now, instead of yelling, her voice is soft, collected, which is, by far, much more terrifying than her screams as she continues to collect things she thinks she needs, starting to actually pay attention to what she is shoving in the backpack. “God damn you and every woman that you’ve been with in the six years we’ve been together. You know how hard it is for me to trust people, you promised me that you wouldn’t take advantage of that, and look where we are now. You’re a sick son of a bitch, and you can be damned sure that I’ll be making sure than every woman in this area knows what you are! Starting with the one you’re with right now. You can come out, sweetie, you’ve done nothing wrong.”

For a moment through her rage, Emma tries to put herself in the girl’s shoes, learning that the guy you’re with is cheating by being walked in on. However, she does not expect it to be someone she knows, a familiar face from the bar - and she does not fail to hide her surprise. 

“Tamara?” Even with all the space between them, she can sense her embarrassment.

“Leave her out of this, Emma. Please.”

As suddenly as it disappeared the first time, Emma’s rage returns. “Then maybe you should have let her out of it all. Or kept yourself out of her, and Lord knows how many others. Fuck, Neal, just looking at you makes me sick!” She swings her backpack over her shoulder, leaving the two of them alone in the bedroom. 

She does not know where she is going, but she is absolutely sure that she never wants to be in that apartment again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the great comments and messages I've been getting, both here and on tumblr! I'm so glad you're all enjoying this story as much as I'm enjoying writing it! If you're on tumblr, come say hi, I'm thejollyroger-writer

She pays no attention to where her feet are taking her; and frankly, she really does not care. All she knows is that she wants to be as far away from there - from _him_ \- as she can. From there, she walks past the library and down to the bay, hoping the sound of the water would calm her as it always seemed to. She takes a detour through the gardens and then back to the river, walking slowly and trying to think about anything other than Neal, but her mind keeps failing her, taking her right back to the place she does not want to be.

Without even realizing it, hours pass. Darkness overtakes the city of Boston as slowly as she serpentines through its streets, still going nowhere in particular. The clocktower keeps ticking, striking, and she keeps walking. 10:00. 11:00. Midnight.

She stands at the edge of a dock, staring out over the water, and she starts to think about, of all things, _anchors_. Specifically, her anchors - or, more appropriately, her lack thereof.

What, exactly, is holding her in Boston? There is nothing holding her here, nothing calling her to stay in this city, not anymore. What is stopping her from leaving, hopping on a train or a boat and finding a new home, somewhere that the streets themselves do not anger her as much as the ones she is on now? Even when it comes to her friends, she only has enough to count on one hand, and none of them would miss her that much. She could go anywhere, do anything, be whoever she wants to be.

Then why is she still here?

She finds a rock by her foot, tosses it into the water, and watches the ripples in the odd mixture of streetlights and the moonlight.

It used to be love. Love used to be what kept her here, the memories of her mother, her friendship with Killian that saved her life in a few ways, and then Neal. But what does she have now? Twenty years without her mother, and an engagement ring given to her by someone that did not even respect her enough to be honest with her.

She knows what her anchor is, the thing that keeps her heart in Boston: fear. Even all of her foster homes were in the Boston area; she has never been anywhere else, does not know anywhere else but here. But is fear really an anchor strong enough to keep her here?

As the clock strikes away another hour, this is exactly the question she ruminates over as she continues her walking, the hypotheticals that swim around in her head as her feet carry her wherever they want to go. Even if she were to leave, where would she go?

Apparently, her feet have an answer. She stops in the middle of the sidewalk, her mind momentarily silencing, and looks up at the building in front of her. For a moment, she doesn’t realize where she is, having only seen the brick face of the building in the daylight, until she sees the street sign on the corner next to her: Foster Street.

Of all the places in the city, her feet take her to Killian’s apartment. For the first time in hours, she sits down, sits on the stoop of his building, and, once again, thinks about the one thing she has been trying to get out of her mind. She sees him, sees _them_ , together in her bed. And even when she tries to get rid of it, the image is seared into her brain. No matter how hard she tries, it does not go away. She wonders what happened after she left, hopes that Tamara had the mind to leave, could understand just how much of a bastard Neal Cassidy turned out to be, but some evil part of her subconscious continues to picture them together, having the night that Emma momentarily hoped for when she arrived back at the apartment.

To her, the hours since then feel like days. Days since she sat before her mother's grave in the rain. Days since Killian covered for her at work, gave her a burger and the night off to recover from her day, exactly what she didn't know she needed until it was already hers.

For a moment, she smiles, remembering his warm gestures, caring for her in the way no one has for too long. And then, of course, her mind just has to go ruin it.

If it hadn't been for Killian and his kindness, she would not be in this situation.

_Damn it, no. Don't look at it that way._

But it's true: if Killian would have just let her work her shift, she never would have been put through this.

_It's better this way. Better to know who he truly is than be in love with a lie._

And then a thought crosses her mind that makes her even angrier: maybe he _knew._ What if Killian sent her home because he knew that Neal was cheating on her, and would be with another woman that night?

_That's crazy. Insane. He would never do that._

Why else would he send her home like that?

_Because he's actually a decent human. He has a heart and he cares about me._

She’s thought that before, though. And has always been wrong.

_This time could be different._

But does she really want to take that chance?

She jumps to her feet again, totally unsure of everything. Why did she end up here? What brought her to this specific location, instead of anywhere else in the city?

_This is a mistake. I need to… I need to go. Go somewhere else._

She takes a step away from the stoop, and another, but she is not fast enough. Even with her mind still running rampant and yelling at her, it is not loud enough to cover the voice that comes from behind her, a voice that, at any other moment, she would be relieved to her, but because of the argument she just had with herself, she wishes she could run away from.

“Emma?”

How she did not realize he was approaching is beyond her, though she was focused on so many other things at the same time. But, taking a deep breath, paints a smile on her face and turns to face him - but when she sees him before her, lit up by the streetlights, she suddenly feels all of the anxiety her mind just mustered up melt away, and her smile is no longer a fake one plastered on her face.

“Killian,” she breathes, and takes the few steps to fill the space between them.

“What’s the matter, love?”

“I - “ She feels the smile fade off her face, being faced with the truth of the situation again, and suddenly, there is a lump in her throat, one that she tries her best to hide, but still feels her voice crack. “I have nowhere else to go.”

“Come on, let’s get you inside.”

He wraps his arm around her shoulders, leading her up the steps to the door, which he unlocks with his free hand. It is not until she is wrapped in a blanket, her feet up on the couch, with a steaming cup of hot tea warming her hands, that Killian asks her anything else.

“Do you want to talk about anything, love?” His voice is soft, caring, and as much as she _does_ want to tell him, want to let it all out so it can stop eating away at her from the inside, she does not seem to be able to bring herself to open her mouth.

But he does not push the issue any further, even as she starts to cry. Instead, with his own mug of tea in hand, he squeezes himself between her and the arm of the couch, letting her rest on his shoulder. He mindlessly watches the late-night reruns of the Andy Griffith Show, but it is not long before he feels her slump against him, fast asleep. After trying - and failing - to softly wake her to move her to the bed, he realizes just how tired she must have been, he decides to carry her instead, gently setting her down and pulling the comforter over her.

Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he softly whispers, “Good night, love,” then closes the door behind him, taking his place on the couch.

  


The first thing she notices when she awakes is the brightness of the morning sun shining through the curtains, her first sign that she is not at home, not cradled in the darkness that her light-blocking curtains provide.

And then she remembers. Everything from the night before comes back to her, and if it were not for waking up with the curtains and the soft throw blanket like those that Neal hates so much, she would believe it was all a dream - or, an awful terrible nightmare.

Taking the blanket with her, she slides off the bed, wrapping it around herself as she opens the bedroom door. The apartment is small enough that she can see him in the kitchen, standing in front of the stove, doing something that she has not done in a long time: making breakfast. She walks through the living room, not failing to notice the pillow and blanket folded neatly on the couch, on top of which his tiny black cat is curled up, asleep, and takes a seat at the small table, taking a few sips from one of the glasses of water he has set out for them.

When he hears her behind him, he turns around with a smile. “Good morning, love.”

Astounded by his hospitality, she cannot help but smile back at him. “Good morning.” Behind him, she sees the clock on the stove, which reads 11:48. “Well, almost afternoon.”

“You had a long night, so I decided to let you sleep.”

“Thank you,” she says, taking another drink. “For everything, really.” He sets a plate in front of her, a Belgium waffle with a side of scrambled eggs. “And for breakfast. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve actually had breakfast that doesn't come from a bag.”

Sitting down across from her with a similar plate of food before him, he smiles at her. “I’ve always been particularly partial to breakfast foods.”

They eat in silence for a few moments, Emma savoring in the sweetness of the syrup and just how damn _perfect_ her waffles are, until she notices him staring at her across the table, eating much slower. She tries to ignore him, thinking that maybe he is looking past her, not _at_ her, but his eyes are too piercing, looking straight into her soul.

Finally, she can’t take it anymore.

“What? Killian, why are you staring at me?”

“I’m just - I’m trying to figure out what happened last night. It almost kept me from sleeping, which is a difficult thing to do. It was almost 2 o’clock when I got home last night and you were sitting on the steps outside of my apartment, and no offense, love, but you didn’t look too well. So I’ve been racking my brain about what bloody happened to you last night, and even my wildest imagination can’t seem to come up with any ideas.”

She opens her mouth to speak, but he does not let her.

“And don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to get you to talk if you do not want to. I’m just… Curious, is all.” To eloquently end his speech, his stuffs a large piece of his waffle in his mouth, dripping syrup down the front of his tank top.

She is silent for a few more moments, trying to get her thoughts into an order that makes sense, but she finally realizes that not only is she overwhelmed by them, but of all things, she _wants to tell him._

“I went to see my mother yesterday, but you already knew that. I miss her like hell, but that’s also nothing new. It was such a shitty day outside, and it just contributed to my mood. She would have hated it, seeing me like that, even just seeing the weather, but that just made me miss her more, and made me even more upset. I was just so… Severely pissed off, and so damn miserable. And then I went to work, and you were the first thing that made me smile all day. Neal didn’t even say anything to me before he left. And you took care of me, made sure I was alright before you let me go home.

“And then when I got home, I saw his car outside, and somewhere deep down, I thought that maybe he did something for me, remembered what day it was and went out of his way, but boy, was I wrong.” Taking a deep breath, she takes another bite of her waffle, giving herself a moment before continuing, but Killian still does not take his eyes off of her. When she does speak again, her voice is soft, almost too soft for him to hear, but these are the secrets she does not want to reveal, secrets that make her heart hurt as she tells him. “It was, actually, quite the opposite. He, uh… all the lights were off, so I assumed he went out for a walk and I went upstairs to change. And that was where he was. Where - where they were, where he was with - with her. And something in me just snapped. I don’t know what I threw at him, but it was everything I could find. And then I packed my backpack and left.”

“But that was - it was just after seven when you left the bar. If you found - left as soon as you got home, what did you do for all of those hours? Because I know you, Emma, and you would not have just sat on the steps of my apartment.”

“I walked. I walked down to the river, through the park, through all of the damned city itself. I walked and I thought about everything, not even paying attention to where I was, and then hours had passed and I was at your doorstep. It was only a few minutes until you got there, like my brain knew when you were going to be home and needed to keep me busy until you got there.”

“I’m so sorry, love. I’m sorry you had to find out like that. I always hoped deep down that Neal would just man up and tell you, but - “

“Wait. You _knew_?”

He just nods, too afraid to say anything to set her off again.

“You knew, and you didn’t tell me? You just let me believe that what I had with Neal was real, when you knew all along that he was with other women?”

“I haven’t known for that long, only a few months. And, in my defense, I only knew that he flirted with other women, not the extent of what he was doing.”

“ _‘In your defense’_? If you wanted to defend yourself, why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I didn’t want to be the one to hurt you, Emma. I care about you too damn much to do that to you.”

“Well, that’s what I thought about Neal, too. And believe it or not, Killian, this hurts, too, knowing that you’ve been hiding his secret from me.”

“Emma, I - “ But before he can say anything else, she pushes her plate away from her, jumps up off her chair, and goes to the first place to find solitude she can think of: the bathroom.


	5. Chapter 5

“Emma, love, come out of there, please.”

At first, he gave her time. He heard the shower start running and cleaned up breakfast waiting for her to come out. But she did not. The only thing she’s said to him in the half hour since he heard the water stop is when she asked him to leave her alone. But that was never something he was very good at, leaving Emma Swan alone, and so now, he finds himself sitting on the other side of the bathroom door with Tink curled up and purring in her lap, pleading with her.

“Please, just talk to me.”

“I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

“Even I know that’s not the truth. The last thing you need to do is keep everything locked inside, and keep yourself locked in the bathroom. Just come out and talk to me before the anger overtakes you.”

She’s silent again.

“I’m sorry, Emma. You’re right, you know. I did the wrong thing, and I should have told you sooner to stop you from all of this pain.” To his surprise, he hears her shuffle behind the door, and leans forward just in time for her to open it behind him.

He turns to her and can tell that she is surprised that he was sitting against the door. Her hair is tied up on the top of  her head, one of his large dark blue towels wrapped around her, long enough to cover from her torso to her knees. Her eyes are puffy and red, he assumes from crying, though the hot water of her shower made her whole face red, so it's not an assumption the feels comfortable  with. But after taking a moment of getting herself together, she finally speaks.

“Of course I was right, Killian. It's one thing to be betrayed and cheated on by the man that I thought loved me. But it's another thing entirely, and maybe even a damn worse thing, to be lied to by the only fucking friend I have in this world.”

While he has already realized just how in the wrong he was, her words still hit him like a punch in the gut, and he pulls himself off the floor to see her eye to eye.

“I'm truly sorry, Emma.” She doesn't want to believe him, wants to put her walls back up and protect herself from the world, but there is something in his voice, something she has never been able to ignore through all the trouble and shit shes been through over the years: a sense of hard, unmistakable _truth_ , and suddenly, she cannot be angry with him anymore. “I promise that I never meant to hurt you. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I kept the truth from you to try to protect you, keep you from the hurt I knew it would bring to you.”

Reaching out towards him, she gently places her palm on his chest, over his heart. He can still see the pain in her bright green eyes, but beyond that, there is something else, the very faint edges of a smile that she tries to muster for him. He wants nothing more than to wrap her in his arms, let her know that he intends to be the soft cushion that protects her from anything else this world can throw at her, but he also knows that he is already pushing his boundaries with her and does not want to do anything that would cause her more discomfort.

“I know, Killian,” she finally says, her soft voice mirroring the beginning of the smile he saw in her eyes, and she can almost _feel_ the walls she was trying to put up crumble between them. Of all the people to be mad at right now, she has made the decision that he is not one of them, _cannot_ be one of them, and looking into the oceans of his deep blue eyes, she can find the same comforting protection she has known for years, something inside him that will always be there to help her.

This is all she has to say, and she turns on her heel towards the bedroom, hoping that the bag she packed in an angry rage is sufficient enough until she can get back to her apartment - _damn it, Neal’s apartment_.

And then she has an idea. After pulling on a pair of jeans and a tank top, drying her hair in the towel, she walks back into the living room, where she finds Killian sitting on the couch, mug of tea in one hand and a worn-down copy of _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_ in the other. She takes a moment to stand there and take a good look at him, at the one man who has consistently been in her life for the past ten years, since she was eighteen, terrified and alone on the streets. He always was more of a reader than a TV watcher, even before he joined the navy and spent a few years with books as his only friends, and the memories of teenaged Killian sitting on a bench in the park, or alone in the corner of a soup kitchen, pull a smile onto her face.

He must sense her there, because he pries his eyes away from the pages to return her gaze, surprised to see her smiling at him from the doorway.

“What?” He asks finally, returning her smile, and she is pulled out of her daydream, sitting down beside him on the couch.

“I was just remembering those first few months we knew each other.”

“Not much to smile about there, love,”

“Well, not unless you’re remembering how much of an awkward teenager you were.”

“Aye, but if I remember correctly, you weren't much better yourself.”

“I think everyone went through an awkward teenage stage, actually.”

“Not Liam,”Killian says with a smile, remembering the fierce, strong man his brother has been for as long as he can remember, eight years between their ages. “By the time Liam was a teenager, we were on the streets together and he had to take care of me on his own. No time to have a childhood, nonetheless awkward teenage years.”

“Okay, then maybe not Liam. But everybody _else_ has an awkward teenage stage. Especially you, sitting all alone with your books.”

“There’s nothing better to help you forget the atrocities of your own life than reading about someone else’s.” He holds up the book, showing her the cover, as if to help prove his point.

She does not argue with him, but instead stands up to get herself a cup of tea, changing the subject. “Question: do you _own_ a coffee maker and just have it in a cabinet or something, or are you really some sort of android that doesn't need caffeine to function?”

“Just because I don’t drink coffee doesn't mean that I don't need caffeine, love. There’s just as much in tea as there is in coffee. Sometimes more.”

“But you really don't drink coffee?”

“Not a drop. Can’t stand the bloody stuff, actually.”

“You never do cease to amaze me, Killian. I’ll just have to grab mine from Neal’s apartment, if he even lets me do that.”

She pulls her phone out of her pocket to text him, but Killian stops her. “Wait, Emma, let me take care of him for you. It’s the least I can do, given the, uh, circumstances.”

“No, I have to go. I won't let him destroy me like this, unable to even face him. If anything, he should be ashamed to face me.”

“Aye, I don't disagree with that. But let me talk to him for you, figure out a time when you and I can go over there and get everything of yours when he's not there. I can at least spare you that pain. I owe you that much.”

This is a statement Emma can’t argue with. Plus, if it means she would have Killian to protect her when they go to retrieve her things, then she will absolutely take him up on his offer: he at least owes her that much.

“You’ll - you’ll talk to him for me? Text him or whatever?”

“Of course, love. It’s the least I can do.”

 

By the time the two of them get to work that night, Killian still had not heard back from Neal. The quiet night goes smoothly, quiet enough that Liam spends most of it on the other side of the bar, having a few drinks, playing pool with his buddies. The hours flash by seamlessly, the loudest noise of the night being when Killian drops a wine glass - until the door slams open, revealing a staggering, _very_ drunk Neal Cassidy.

“Emma Swan!” He yells, though the bar has already grown silent. “Where is Emma?”

If the bar had more patrons, this would have been one of the most awkward moments of Emma’s life, every eye in the room on her, but they are all eyes of those who care about her, those that would protect her: Killian, Liam, Robin, Will, and August.

“What do you want, Neal?” Killian voices the same question she has in her head.

“Jones!” He staggers towards the bar, not even seeming to notice Emma standing behind Liam, the bulk of his body almost completely covering her from Neal's view. At first, she simply found the closest, largest thing and made sure it was between herself and Neal, and that something just happened to be Liam - but then she felt his hand against her shoulder, pushing her further behind him. “I have a few words for you, too!”

“Aye, mate, and what might those be?”

“A lot of nerve you have, _mate_ , texting me and demanding to come pick up my fiance’s things. What gives you the right - “

“Listen, you damned fool, she came to me after the stunt you pulled Saturday night, and you’re bloody lucky I haven’t showed up on my own yet and - “

Hearing the anger dripping from Killian’s voice, Emma jumps out from her hiding spot, resting her hand on his shoulder before he says anything he shouldn’t.

“Killian, please,” she says softly, pushing herself between him and Neal, the bar still between them. “Hello, Neal.”

Seeing her changes him completely: the mask of anger melted away to a sweet smile, his volatile crossed arms broken apart and leaning against the bar, trying to fill as much of the space between them; but she does not budge, already sick to her stomach just at the sight of him. “Emma,” he breathes, but says nothing else for a few moments.

“What do you want, Neal?” she pushes, trying to push the conversation as quickly as she can. “Why are you here?”

“I just want to - to talk. About what happened. About… us.”

“And you think the best place for this is here? And now? While I’m at work?”

He pauses for a moment, looking at the people sitting at the bar for the first time. “I hadn’t thought about that, actually.”

“No surprise there,” she mumbles. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“Please… please come home.”

“That’s not my home anymore, Neal. You ruined that the first time you brought another woman to our bed, however damn long ago that was. All I want is to come by and pick up my things. Now, please, I don’t want to talk to you, and there’s nothing you can say that will change that.”

“Please, Emma, I love you.”

“Well, you should have thought of that before. Out, please.”

But when he still doesn’t budge, Killian steps back between them, shielding her from him once more. “You heard the lady, Cassidy. Remove yourself.”

To no one’s surprise, Neal does not listen to Killian; instead, he pulls out the barstool closest to him and sits upon it, his arms crossed on the bar in front of him. “You can’t make me leave, so I’ll just sit here until you’ll talk to me.”

Before either Killian or Emma can say anything, Liam pushes his way to the front, leaning cooly against the bar across from Neal. “They may not be able to kick you out, but I sure as hell can.” Somehow, Liam has kept his cool, smiling warmly at Neal, his words soft enough that Emma and Killian, right behind him, can barely hear him.

“I’m not afraid of you, Jones.”

“Ah, mate, that was your first mistake. Now, please leave my bar or I will have you removed.”

“You can’t remove me!” Even with Liam’s coolness, Neal’s voice continues to grow louder, and Emma notices that the three at the bar are still watching - especially Robin, who she always seems to forget is a deputy police officer until he shows up in uniform, like tonight.

“Actually, given that this is my property and you are my customer, it turns out I can do exactly that.” He turns towards Robin, gesturing him in his direction, and when he speaks again, his voice is a little louder. “Of course, if you choose not to remove yourself, I can always have you removed, isn’t that right, Officer Locksley?”

Emma watches his eyes flick from Liam to Robin and then back before he stands up.

“That’s - uh, that won’t be necessary.” Without another word, another moment’s hesitation, he is gone.

Killian can almost feel the whole bar take a deep breath together, then go back to what they were doing before the distraction, though no one says a word - until Emma places her hand on his shoulder, the other on Liam’s, and says gently, “I’ll be in the office.”


	6. Chapter 6

Liam is surprised to find her not on one of the chairs with her head on the desk, but standing before the window, looking out over the harbor, lit up by the low evening sun. He does not want to startled her or break her train of thought, so he says nothing, just stands there leaning against the doorway.

Killian had fought him on this,  tried to insist that he be the one to console Emma, but it was an argument not worth having - he had gotten to console her the night before, but Liam was the one that saved her here, and the one that deserves any repercussions from his actions.

Emma must know he’s there, though: after a moment, she speaks, keeping her eyes fixed somewhere way beyond the office. “You know, Liam, my life has been just so full of shit, of people betraying me and letting me down. But ever since I met Killian, met the two of you, you’ve always been there for me, even when you were both thousands of miles away. And it’s something I’ve never been quite able to understand.”

“What’s not to understand, Emma? Ever since my little brother wrote to me and said he had finally made a friend, I’ve thought of you as someone I need to protect as much as I protect my little brother, even before I ever met you. So I’ve been watching over you ever since, like you were my own little sister. And I know Killy feels the same.” He sits down on the office chair, his feet up on the desk, and begins spinning his army ring around his pointer finger.

“Yeah, but why? All I’ve ever known is pain, hurt, being left behind by those who’ve claimed to care about me. And I know I’ve treated you both the same way, unable to root myself anywhere, in anyone - and even when I do, you can tell that it always fucking blows up in my face, doesn’t it? So why the hell have you stuck with me, when no one else has? For longer than anyone else has ever tried?”

“Did you ever think that’s why, Emma?” Something in his voice draws her to finally turn towards him, some sense of anguish, of sadness, but when her eyes meet the bright blue of his, he smiles at her. “Maybe the fact that you’ve been continually been let down by people - the fact that you’re so damn similar to us - is what drew me to care about you so much.”

“Thank you, Liam,” she says, smiling at him, and then turns back to the window.

“Aye, Swan, of course.” He pushes himself off the office chair, leaving her in the office. “Take as much time as you need up here, I think Killy and I can handle the bar for the rest of the night.”

“I’ll, uh, be down in a little,” she says, and then he is gone.

 

When Emma comes back down the steps and through the kitchen a little over half an hour later, the bar is empty, silent, and cleaned off, save Killian’s glass sitting in the middle. He is on the other side of the bar, sweeping the hardwood floor, but stops when she closes the kitchen door behind her.

“I wasn’t gone for that long, was I?” She asks, a smile on her face.

“No, no, Robin had to go to work right after you went upstairs, and everyone else left soon after. You just missed Liam by a few minutes.”

“Guess that leaves the two of us to close up.”

“Aye, and not for the first time.”

Grabbing the other broom from the other side of the kitchen door, Emma starts in the pool room, though the bar was dead enough all day that she barely finds any dirt. It does not take them long to sweep and mop, and within another fifteen minutes, they are sitting back at the bar, Killian with his Captain and coke, and Emma with a bottle of beer.

“At some point, we need to talk about what happened,” Emma says after a moment.

“On your own time, Emma. You don’t have to talk about anything until you’re ready.”

“You know, I asked Liam earlier why the hell the two of you keep protecting me, and do you know what he told me?”

“Of course I do, he’s my brother. But the two of us, we protect people that understand us, that have been through similar shit in their own lives. You were my friend when I had no one else, and so I will always protect you when you need it.”

“You really are an incredible pair. I’m surprised that someone hasn't swooped in and snatched up the two of you.”

“Well, there’s only one person Liam wants to spend the rest of his life with, so even with all the women that try to win him, none of them are anything compared to how he feels about her, though he refuses to do anything about it.”

Emma’s eyes grow wide. “Wait, _who_?”

But Killian’s face reddens, realizing his mistake. “I - uh, I shouldn’t have said that, huh? I've hidden his secret for this long and now I have to go and make a damned fool of myself.”

“Killian, come on,” she pleads, her hand on his arm, and when he looks up at her smile, he remembers that she is one of two people she trusts more than anyone in the world.

After a moment, he nods his head, taking another mouthful of his drink, before leaning in close to her, even though there is no one else in the bar. “Fine, love, I’ll tell you. But you can tell _no one,_ not even Liam.”

“Yes, yes, okay!”

“It’s Belle.”

“Belle French?!” Emma replies, definitely not whispering, and Killian shushes her, though again for no reason. “The Belle that’s been coming in here for as long as I can remember?”

Finally, Killian smiles at her. “Yes, yes, that’s her. They met when he went back to school after his second deployment, you remember that?”

“Of course.”

“Well, she was in his English class, and they became fast friends, especially when they realized just how much the other liked Victor Hugo.” Killian lets out a short laugh. “We always were a book family.”

“I know.”

“Well, yeah. And then he came home one day and told me that he was in love with her.”

“But that was - that was a few months after I met you, ten years ago.”

“Yes, you’re right.”

“Ten years is a long time to be in love with someone from afar.”

“Aye, love, that it is.”

“And ten years without doing anything?”

She is staring at the bottle in her hands, slowly peeling off the wrapper piece by peace, but he does not take his eyes off of her - she may be talking about Liam, but he is not.

“When you really care about someone like that, you just hope for as long as you can that one day, they’ll look up and see you there in the same way you’ve been seeing them the whole time. No pushing, no convincing, just… Waiting.”

“What about you, Killian?” She asks, her eyes still on her beer bottle, but when she doesn’t answer, she turns to him and is surprised to see the brightness of his eyes staring into her.

“What about me?”

“You’re the most charming and most handsome man I’ve ever met. There’s got to be someone in your life, someone that you care about.”

“Do you really not know, Emma?” He says finally, his voice soft, and at first she doesn't understand what he means.

But then, there is something in his gaze, a new gleam that she never noticed before in him, and without realizing what she is doing, her hand is on his neck, pulling him towards her, pressing her lips against his. It only lasts a moment before he finds her hand in his hair, pulling away just enough to look into her eyes.

“Emma,” he whispers, just as she says, “I’m sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have done that, Killian. I - I don't know why I even - “

“You have a lot going on right now, love. I don’t - I shouldn’t have said anything, at least not right now.” He goes to stand up, but her hand on his arm stops him.

“No, that’s not - that’s not it. Just give me some time, okay?” When he looks down at her, he is surprised to find her smiling up at him.

“Of course, love,” he says, the corner of his mouth flicking up for a moment. “I’ve waited this long, and I’ll wait as long as I have to in order to win your heart.”

 

The night is quiet. It’s just past midnight when they return to Killian’s apartment, and they continue on as usual, next to each other on the couch, he with his book and her watching the TV, not quite touching, but close enough to feel the charge between them. An hour ticks by, and then another, Emma no longer paying attention to the TV, but instead trying to figure out what she wants to do. She can’t stop thinking about the conversation they had earlier, and the one she had with Liam before that. Maybe she kept being drawn to the wrong people because she was overlooking the right ones, refusing to see the truth that has been sitting in front of her for ten years.

Meeting Killian was, without a doubt, the best thing to ever happen to her, the one thing that has changed her life only for the better. If anyone was worth giving a chance to, especially given what just happened to her, she was damned sure it was Killian Jones.

She had been afraid to turn to him as she sat there, but finally, she does. Continuing to read, he does not realize it, and it gives her a moment to take a good look at him: the way he leans into the couch, his large hand holding the book on his lap open, the other behind his head; the curve of his face, the sharp line of his jaw, visible even through his slight stubble, and how he grinds the back of his teeth together as he reads.

Finally, he looks up at her, still staring at him, and he can't help but smile.

“What is it, love?”

Instead of answering, she leans in towards him, finding his lips with hers; unlike the kiss in the bar, nothing about this kiss is soft; her hand slides up the side of his face and into his hair, squeezing it into her fist. His tongue is soft and warm against hers, and she pulls herself across him to straddle his lap, setting his book down on the arm of the couch, and he wraps his arms around her, pulling her closer to him. The tips of her fingers slide their way under his shirt, but when she tries to pull it up and over his head, he stops her, holding her wrists in his hands.

“Emma,” he whispers, his voice thick. “Are - “

“Killian, don't. I - I haven't been able to think about anything else. Yes, I'm sure. I wouldn't already be here if I wasn't.”

He says nothing else, taking a moment to look into the depth of her green eyes before he lets go of her wrists, holds her against him, and turns them to set her on her back on the couch, holding himself over her. This time, when she goes to remove his shirt, he does not stop her, keeps his eyes on her as she runs her fingers across his chest, feeling him above her, feeling his heart beat in his chest. Trying his best to hold himself up, he slides his hand up and under her shirt, which she helps his remove without losing his balance. She pulls up her shoulders, giving him space to reach behind her and uhhook her bra, and once it’s on the floor, he presses his chest against hers, feeling her beneath him, moving against him. His lips move from hers down her neck, planting kisses along the line of her pulse and down her chest before he turns his eyes up to her.

“I’ve waited so long for this, Emma, so I hope you don’t mind if I take my time.” Kissing his forehead, she smiles at him. When his lips touch her again, her breath hitches -

-and her eyes snap open, the dream suddenly over. She turns to him, next to her on the couch, one arm still tucked behind his head, the other slung over her shoulder. The TV is still on, playing some late-night infomercial, and she clicks it off, blanketing the room in darkness. Her aching back wants her to move to the bed, but her heart does not; and, resting her cheek against the curve of his shoulder, she realizes just how much she wishes her dream wasn’t a dream.

Damn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me start by saying... sorry! The dream scene was actually the first idea I had for this fic, and I totally needed it to happen. But no worries, I've taken some parts out while I was writing it and saved them for later ;)  
> Thank you all so much for your kind words, comments, and kudos on this! It really means a lot to me!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took so long - life is trying to catch up with me, as much as I keep trying to stop it. But thank you all for keeping up with this wonderful story!

When she wakes up the next morning, she finds herself alone, still on the couch, but laying down, her head where she remember Killian was laying the night before, covered in a soft throw blanket, which he seemed to have an abundance of throughout the apartment. 

When she wraps the blanket tighter around herself, stretching to sit up, the couch creaks beneath her, and she watches as Killian shifts in his chair at the table in the kitchen, turning his eyes from the book sitting in front of him to her. 

“Good morning, love.”

“Morning,” she replies, her voice still thick from sleep. 

“How did you sleep?”

His question, as simple as it is, pulls a smile to her lips that she cannot stop, her mind immediately jumping to the dream that she was so rudely awoken from. “Very well, actually. What about you?”

“No complaints from me.” He stares at her for another moment before turning back to his book on the table. ‘I’ve been sleeping on that couch longer than I’ve even had a bed. I find it incredibly comfortable.”

“Even when you have to share it?” She pulls herself off the couch and makes herself a cup of tea, which she’s slowly growing accustomed to, before sitting down across from him at the table. 

“Especially when I share it.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes as she mindlessly scrolls through Instagram before he says, “He texted me this morning, you know.”

At first, she does not quite hear his words, expecting him to keep quiet; when she does hear them, they do not immediately make sense. And then she remembers: of course,  _ Neal _ . 

“He - he did?”

“Aye, and apologized for last night. He also said that if we want to drop by today, we can take as long as we need to collect all of your things.”

“That’s civil of him. Will he - did he say if he would be there or not?”

“He said that he would be in and out all day, but we could come whenever.” She nods, taking another sip of her tea, and he adds, “And he said that if you take everything, you can leave your key on the counter.” But he leaves out the last part of his message, the message that even he did not want to answer:  _ for the new roommate. _ He can plead as much ignorance as he wants; for all he knows, maybe Neal really is letting out the spare room to a man, though he seriously doubts it. 

Emma tries to think about other things as the day goes on, but her mind won’t leave the subject of Neal, and more importantly, of all her things being held hostage at his apartment. Killian can sense that something is wrong, and less than an hour passes between breakfast and when he pulls his Chevelle up to the curb outside. 

Though they both hoped that they could get through this without encountering Neal, but as soon as they pull up outside,  they see his car parked down the block, and they both know that they will not be so lucky. 

When Emma pulls her key out of her  pocket and sticks it into the door to unlock it, it opens before them, taking her keys with it, revealing Neal standing behind it. She and Killian both wordlessly stare at him for a moment before he finally takes a step out of the way, letting them into the house.

“Hi, Emma,” he breathes, and she barely turns towards him as she passes him in the doorway, heading straight for her suitcase and overnight bag in the bedroom closet.  

Killian goes to follow her up the steps, refusing to even look over at Neal until he feels his hand on his arm. Without meaning to, he turns his piercing blue eyes to him with a glare, a low growl starting at the back of his throat.

Hearing this, Neal violently pulls his hand back, slamming the wall with his elbow. “Sorry, man, I didn’t - I wasn’t…” His voice trails off, but Killian still says nothing. After a moment, Neal starts again, his voice much softer. “Are you - are you two…?”

“Listen, mate. She came to me and needed somewhere to stay, someone she could trust. So that’s what I gave her. What I’ve always given her, unlike you.”

“Look, Killian,” he tries again, but is cut off by Emma’s screams from upstairs.

“You son of a bitch!”

Killian glares at him for another moment before taking the stairs two at a time. He finds her in the bedroom, standing before the dresser, throwing clothing over her shoulder and across the room. 

“Emma, love, what’s wrong?” Killian says softly from the doorway, but when she whirls around, her eyes go straight to Neal, coming down the hallway behind him. 

“There’s someone else’s clothing in my dresser! Another woman’s.”

Just when Neal thinks he could not become more afraid of Killian, he watches, wide-eyed, as he slowly turns around to face him, the muscles in his jaw already flexing as he takes a deep breath. 

“There’s - listen, Emma, I can explain.”

“You bloody well be able to,” Killian growls through his clenched teeth, just as Emma says, “Two days, Neal. It’s been two days!”

“I didn’t - I told her she can leave some of her things here. I didn’t tell her to put it in your dresser.”

In lieu of a response, she balls the shirt in her hand and throws it at Neal’s head. It falls short, but she got her point across. Throwing her hands up in the air, she grabs the bag closest to her and heads to the bathroom to gather her things from in there. 

When he believes she is out of earshot, Killian presses his forearm against Neal’s chest, pinning him against the wall behind them. 

“You’ve got a lot of bloody fucking nerve, you know, don’t you, Cassidy?” He tries to keep his voice low so Emma cannot hear him from the bathroom, but instead of the whisper he was trying for, his voice instead comes out as a low growls, sending a shiver of fear down Neal’s spine. Killian has a few inches on him, not to mention the pure muscle that his years in the military helped create - one of which is currently millimeters away from pressing on his windpipe. “What, you think now that she has learned the secret that you have only hidden from her you can act however you damned well please?  Despite everything you have done to hurt her, for some reason she still loves you. The least you can do is make it look like you actually care about her, somewhere in that blackened heart of yours.”

“I do still care about her, Killian. You may not understand that, and she might not be able to see it right now, but I do. I always have.”

“Well you sure as hell have an odd way of showing it.”

He hears the bathroom door open and takes a step away from Neal, releasing him from his grip, but keeps his burning blue eyes on him, even as he asks, “Do you need help with anything, Emma?”

Instead of responding directly to Killian, Emma instead turns to Neal. “Can he pack my things from the closet, or has your new lover taken over that, too?”

Neal’s eyes flash from Emma’s to Killian’s, then back to Emma’s, before he whispers, “No, the closet should be fine.”

For the next half hour, Neal barely leaves the spot on the wall where Killian pinned him against, his pounding heart ticking away the minutes. He knows he should move, should do  _ something _ , but his fear and embarrassment leave him glued. 

They finish the bedroom, cleaning out her side of the closet, the shelves, her bedside table, With most of her belongings packed away, being loaded into Killian’s car by the curb, Neal realizes just how empty the apartment is without her, how empty his life is without all of the things that she has taken as her own. He knows that he is lucky she left him with anything, given just how much of the furniture she helped purchase, but he figured that it just wouldn't fit in the sports car. 

However, as he walks through the house in her wake, finally realizing just how much he was relying on her existence, he discovers a few more of her things that she left behind: some of her dresses that he remembers her buying for some special occasions, that usually did not make it much longer than to the bedroom door, if even that far; some of her photo albums of their time together; the movies that she knew were his favorite, or they would watch together most often. And it isn't until he is holding her copy of  _ Finding Neverland,  _ one of her favorite movies and the first time she cried in front of him, that he realizes just what she has left behind: everything that reminds her of him. 


	8. Chapter 8

Silence has never been something to bother Killian Jones. After his tours overseas, he would always choose silence over the terrifying, ear-piercing explosions that fill his mind, his nightmares, his daydreams. 

But the silence that fills his car on the way back to his apartment is a different story entirely. He has known Emma for long enough to know the difference between comfortable silence and angry silence, though he has only experienced the latter enough times to count on one hand. 

And right now is one of those times. 

By the time that he realizes Emma’s silence is more out of her hatred for Neal and disgust of the happenings of the morning, it is too late to turn on the radio, and trying to create conversation was never his strong point, especially with angry, brooding women. So he does the only thing he can do: he tries not to let it get under his skin, to focus on anything other than the blonde in the seat next to him, with her set jaw and her arms crossed tightly over her chest. He pays attention to the traffic, goes over his schedule for the week in his head, tries to make a grocery list. 

In fact, he is so much in his own head that he almost does not hear her when she finally speaks. “Take me to the harbor, Killian.”

He does not at first seem to understand her words, and he takes the opportunity to traffic light gives him to glance over at her before the car in front of him starts moving again. “What?”

“The harbor, Killian. I want to go to the harbor.” He glances at her again, but her eyes are still fixed ahead of her. With a sigh, he signals and changes his course towards the water. 

She remains silent. Silent and unmoving, even when he is parked as close the harbor as he can be. He tries to give her a few minutes - there must have been a reason she needed to come here, and he would give her all the time she needs to complete her task. 

He only wishes she was not so quiet. Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, he turns to her, trying to get even a glimpse of something through her mask of silence, and this is when he sees her movement, one that makes himself wonder just how long she has been doing it. Her arms are no longer crossed over her chest; instead, her hands are on her lap, fidgeting. Not just fidgeting, but running her thumb over the ring on her left hand, her engagement ring. 

“Emma,” he says softly, but before he can continue, she gets out, leaving him there as she slams the door closed behind her. Taking a deep breath, he rests his head against the steering wheel and runs his fingers through his hair. He lifts his eyes back to her in time to watch her round the corner out of sight, walking down the dock. At first, he does not know if he should follow her, or if that would be crossing a line, but the question overpowers his mind too much in just a few short moments that there is nothing else he can do: with a sigh, he gets out of the car and follows her, keeping his distance. 

When he finds her, she is standing at the edge of the dock, holding out her hand in front of her. Even from where he is, he can see her eyeing the way the light refracts from the diamonds for another moment before removing it from her finger. There is nothing he can do to stop her - he does not even want to, actually - as she throws it as far as she can, letting it find the depths of the harbor.  

He watches the rise and fall of her shoulders as she takes a deep breath, and then she turns back towards him, momentarily taken aback by him on the other end of the dock. But after a moment, he is surprised to see her smile at him, making her way back in his direction. 

He is even more surprised when she walks right up to him and plants her lips directly on to his. After just a moment, she pulls back, revealing a huge smile spread across her face. “To new beginnings,” she whispers, then finds his hand with hers, pulling him behind her back to the car. 

“Aye, love. To that.”

 

Much to his surprise, Emma continues to keep a grip on his hand as he drives them home, even when he has to shift, as if her life depended on it. Thankfully, the traffic has died down, and he cannot spend traffic stops staring at her, because every time he catches a glimpse of her in the corner of his eye, he finds it harder and harder to pull his eyes back to the road. 

In fact, he almost drives right past his apartment, his mind focused on the kiss they shared on the dock, but he pulls himself back down to earth at the last moment, pulling into his spot on the street. 

And then, as much as he does  _ not  _ want to bring up the subject that comes to mind, he has to, for his own good in the long run. 

“Emma, love, should we move it all up to my apartment? Or are you - are you going to start looking for your own…” he lets his voice trail off, but when she turns towards him, he is still surprised to see the workings of a smile slowly making their way across her face. 

“Killian Jones, are you asking me to move out?”

“No, no, of course not, I just - if you are planning on finding… your own place, I would rather not carry everything you own up the stairs just to - just to carry it back down.”

Something about him, his nervous stuttering, makes the smile widen across her face. “Well, actually, I - I wasn’t planning on going anywhere, as long as that’s - as long as you’re okay with that?”

Suddenly, he’s not that nervous anymore, and he can feel his own smile spreading across his face, coursing through his veins. “That is more than okay with me, Emma. It is, more than anything, up to you as to what you want to do. As long as you are comfortable and - and happy, and where you feel like you need to be.”

She squeezes his hand, then leans over the console between them, meeting him halfway for another kiss. 

“Right here is where I need to be, Killian. Right here, with you. I know that now, and I know that I never should have given up on you.”

“Given up on me?”

It is not until he repeats her words that she realizes she has revealed the one secret she has managed to keep to herself for almost ten years - though it was relatively easy, given the fact that the one person she was keeping it from happens to be the same person she told all of her secrets to. But it is too late now. She can hide it no more. So she lets it all out.

“Before you left the first time, after I’d lived in your apartment for a while and really got to know you, I, uh - well, I developed a bit of a crush on you. And, I mean, who in their right mind wouldn’t have? You were sweet and wonderful and protective and, of all things, actually gave a shit about me. But it was - I was too late, because by the time I realized this, you were on a plane across the country to boot camp and I was stuck here by myself. And then, you didn’t even get a chance to come home before you deployed, and I had already met Neal, who I at least thought cared about me as much as you did, though I really don’t know anymore.”

“If it makes you feel any better, love, I did kind of actually like the bastard at first, though I cannot attest to whether his actions were admirable.”

Finally, she smiles, turning back towards him. “That does make me feel a little better, at least. I’m hoping that, at some point, he actually loved me, and maybe even wanted to spend his life with me. But now, I have a question for you: why, in the twelve years we’ve known each other, have you never told me how you feel?”

“You’ve no idea how bloody terrible it’s been, keeping this inside for so long. It was - I cannot tell you exactly when my feelings for you started, but leaving you here alone when I went to boot camp, and then never knowing if I would see you again when they sent me overseas, was damned near the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I had a box of letters in my footlockers that I had written to you, trying so many ways to tell you how I felt, but no matter how the words sounded, I was never able to actually send one back to you. I didn’t want you to find out that way, especially if I really never did make it back home, and that was the last you’d heard from me. And then I got back, and you seemed so happy with him, seemed like things were actually looking up for you, and I - even with how much I had realized I cared for you, especially during those lonely nights in my bunk with nothing to keep me from thinking about nothing but you for hours, for days - I couldn’t bring myself to ruin what you had. Then when I came home the second time, when my time was up and I could really be here again, you had gotten engaged, and even with how much I had grown to hate the man, especially once I started serving him alcohol and discovered just how untrustworthy he was, I did not feel it was my place, that it would not have been good form for me to both break you up and then need to be the one to comfort you.”

The car is silent for a few moments as Emma really takes in everything Killian had just admitted, especially knowing just how long he has kept it all inside, until she finally pulls his hand up to her mouth, gently pressing it against her lips. 

“Well, now I need you to be the one to comfort me, if you wish.”

He feels the corner of his mouth flick up, still nervous from all the secrets he has just released, but something in the way she smiles across the car at him, in the soft way she kisses the back of his hand and listens intently to all of his stories, makes him somehow sure that, even if just for right now, everything is going to be okay. 

“Aye, love,” he says softly, pulling her forehead forward to rest against his, his thumb caressing her soft cheek as he gently meets his lips with hers. “I would like that..”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading :)


	9. Chapter 9

Emma sets her backpack down inside the door, closing it behind her and leaning back against the cold wood, running her fingers through her hair.  For the first time since they started, she takes a good look at the pile of her things that has accrued in the living room of the small apartment - and, not for the first time, she realizes just how  _ little  _ she owns. All of her things, everything she treasures (save the few things she left behind with Neal, the things that reminded her too much of him) sits before her in two suitcases, a duffel bag, a box full of books, and two backpacks. 

“Well, that’s the last of it,” she says. “No thanks to you.” Smiling, she turns to him, in the kitchen, but he is facing the stove, not her. 

Whether he means to or not, something in his words make her regret her joke. “I figured you were as hungry as I am, and that you wouldn’t mind if I left you the last load to make you dinner.”

“Thank you, Killian,” she says softly, crossing the apartment to stand next to him, her hand against the flat of his back. “What’s for dinner?”

He wraps his arm around her waist, pressing his lips against her forehead. “How do you feel about clams, darling?”

As much as she loves clams, her mind is fixed on something else entirely. “Darling,” she repeats, hearing the word roll off her tongue. 

She feels his grip on her waist loosen, giving him space to turn to her, to take a really good look at her, though her eyes are momentarily fixed on a point on the stove. 

“I - I’m sorry. If it makes you uncomfortable, I won’t ever - “ His words  quickly tumble out of his mouth, stumbling over each other embarrassingly, but they stop when he feels her hand press gently on his chest. 

“No, no, that’s not it. That’s not it at all, actually. It’s just - that’s the first time - no one has ever called me… Anything like that before, actually.”

“Ever?”

She pauses for a moment. “Well, my mother used to call me ‘princess,’ but that’s it. It wasn’t very much like Neal to say things like that - not that it ever bothered me much. But you, it just caught me off-guard, is all.”

“If you would like me to stop, I will.”

This time when she turns to him, he watches a smile grow across her face as she says, “That’s not what I said, now, is it?”, and he can’t help but smile back at her. 

“No, darling, it’s not. Now, how do you feel about clams?”

 

Killian’s linguine with clams is one of the most delicious things Emma has tasted in years, the perfect middle ground between garlic and lemon. She cannot stop eating it, but after the second bowl is down, she turns to him to find him watching her intently as she eats, smiling gently at her across the table. 

“Killian, this is incredible. How have I never known that you were such an amazing cook?”

“Don’t rush to conclusions, love. Let me make you a few more meals and you’ll learn that I can’t make everything as well as I can make this.”

“I think I’ll just have to hold you up to that offer, chef Jones.”

Given everything that has happened in the past few days, the evening passes by pleasantly, a surprisingly peaceful beacon in the middle of the chaotic darkness, and after they finish loading the dinner dishes in the dishwasher, they settle into the couch and decide to watch a movie, something that would take her mind off of everything that has happened and allow her to focus on anything else. She decides on  a Victorian period piece that she finds on Netflix (which she immediately changes the password for, so Neal can no longer access it), followed by whatever reruns she can find. The whole time, Killian sits poised on one end of the couch, one arm perched on the arm of the couch and the other around Emma’s shoulders, her fingers weaved gently through his. Slowly, she tries to burrow deeper into his shoulder, have him pull her closer to her, anything, but he stands his ground, doing no more than shifting in his seat. 

Finally, she cannot even keep her eyes open, and she finds herself slowly falling asleep against him. When she hears him say, “Okay, love, let’s get you to bed,” she has no idea is it is real or a dream.

But when she finds herself back on the streets, reliving the memory of being attacked by the three men who have haunted her dreams since she was fourteen, everything feels so real. She screams for help, but no one hears her, even as her lungs begin to hurt. 

But Killian hears her, and as soon as he realizes just what has awoken him, he is on his feet, pushing through the bedroom door, and sitting next to her on the bed. 

He tries to shake her shoulders, but she does not wake immediately, yelling something incoherent once more before her eyes snap open, her terrified expression taking a good look at Killian’s face, and she takes a breath. Her hands find his on her shoulders, and he can feel the pounding of her heart. 

“Emma,” he says softly, but she seems to be able to focus on his face, the tense terror in her features melting away. “You’re okay,” he soothes. “Everything is alright.”

Slowly, she sits up, resting her head in her hands.

“I’m so sorry, Killian,” she says softly after a moment, and he places his hand on top of hers. 

“No, sorry is the last thing you need to be. It’s not - they’re not your fault. How often do you have them?” 

With his words, she turns her eyes towards him, and they reflect the low light that shines through the curtains. “Almost every night.” 

“Well, I’m here now, alright?” he says, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her into his chest. “You’re okay.”

“You’re pretty good at this,” she whispers after a moment, kissing his cheek.

“I know exactly what I would need to hear if I would have had someone there for me when I went through this after the war.

She pulls her head back far enough to take a look at him. “You - you went through this?”

“Well, I went through a period where they happened a lot more frequently, but technically, they’ve never stopped. Just gotten less frequent and less…”

“Awful?” she says, and he smiles gently at him. 

“Yes. Less awful. But they stopped happening every night, and so will yours. Now, what can I do to help soothe you? I was always a sucker for a good cup of tea.”

“Whatever you would recommend. You are the expert.”

“Chamomile it is,” he says with a smile, and escorts her out and onto the couch,

The electric kettle takes only a few minutes to warm up, so it is not long before he returns to her, a mug of tea in both hands. 

“I knew I would change you one day, I just didn’t expect it to be so soon,” he jokes, carefully sipping his tea. 

She smiles, but does not respond. Instead, she is thinking, mostly about Killian. She has spent so many years as his companion, so many years sharing her stories with him, but she feels as if she has learned more about him in the past three days than in the past ten years put together, and it amazes her. 

But she has always seen Killian to be this strong mountain of a man, someone who was always ready to protect and save the people around him; she never for a moment thought that he, too, would have nightmares that wake him up in the middle of the night, scars from the war that would never heal.

“Go back to bed, love,” he says after a few minutes, and she realizes that she much have been dozing off. “You’ll be just fine, I promise you that.”

She turns to him, smiling, and weaves her fingers through his. “I know, Killian. Yes, let’s go to bed.”

“Emma, come on, I can protect you just as well from the couch.”

“I’ve always found the best thing to do at times like this are have someone you can trust by your side. Someone you…” She inhales, swallows, and turns back to him, searching his eyes for any sign of a response. “Someone who loves you.”

She watches as his nostrils flare, as the corner of his lips flicks up in a momentary smile. As he does not respond. 

And then he finishes the last mouthful of tea, licks his lips, and stands up, holding his hand out towards her. “Aye, darling. That is a point that I just can't argue with.”

She is back asleep before him, which gives him the chance to take another look at her before he tries once more to follow her to sleep. She is on her stomach, one arm curled under the pillow and the other pulled in at her side. In the light from the street that shines through the curtains, he can watch the way her back rises and falls with her breath, see her shining blonde hair spilling out over the pillow. 

As much as he wants to hold her in his arms, feel his body pressed up against hers as they drift back to sleep, he is still a gentleman of honor, and when he climbs into the bed beside her, but leaves space between them. He has waited this long to have her, and he will wait even longer before crossing this threshold. Yes, she initiated the kiss on the dock, but that does not mean that she is ready for everything that may come with it. He will give her the space she needs, give her time to heal her heart and herself; and when she does finally decide she is ready to let someone in again, he will be there. 

  
  


He awakes to find her curled up beside him, her head tucked against his shoulder and her hand gently resting on his chest, following the rise and fall of his breathing. He can feel her hair tickling his arm, but he does not care - here, he finds the most beautiful he ever has, a sight that he decides he could spend the rest of his mornings waking up to.

But he is still going to give her the space that she needs, the time to free herself from everything before she decides she is ready to try again. His fingers find her hair, gently running through the soft strands, bright in the morning sun, and he presses a soft kiss to her forehead before slowly sliding away from her, careful not to wake her. 

Even though his mind is focused on other things, he still turns on the Sports Center updates, a habit he picked up from his time living with Liam, though he never really cared about sports himself, and begins goes through his normal morning routine: feed Tink, start the kettle (and now the coffee pot), and put away as many of the dishes as he can before his water starts to whistle. But even when he has his Earl Grey on the couch and can scroll through his social media updates, his mind is still not able to focus on the words of his friends.

Last night, he accomplished the very thing that he has wanted to do since he was sixteen: shared the bed with Emma Swan. He woke her up from a nightmare, comforted her, and then laid beside her as she slept. The way the thought of it makes his heart pound makes him feel like a teenager, or like the twenty-year-old who still dreamt about her instead of the explosion-filled nightmares that haunt his dreams since then. 

He very easily could have accomplished a dream of his and  _ held  _ her last night, started to feel the way her body felt against his as they slept. And with the way she was acting in the middle of the night, she probably would have let him. 

But there is a reason he did not. 

_ Honor. _ He hears the word in his brother's voice, though that is no surprise. 

_ 'There is nothing more important for a man to have than honor.’  _ It is a lesson that has been drilled into his head, something Liam had told him hundreds of times. Liam was a man of honor, and Killian wants nothing more in life than to be just like his brother. 

(But he would never tell him that. Probably.)

Right now, the best way to maintain his honor is to give her space, even if she does not feel as if she needs it. He will give her space because it's the right thing to do, and when she is good and ready, he will close the space between them and finally have the prize of the woman he has loved since he was a teenager. 

He is halfway through his second cup of tea when she emerges from the bedroom, and he is surprised to see her already dressed in what look like workout clothes. 

“Good morning,” she says, and the smile she flashes him as she walks past him is sincere enough to feel his heart pound for a moment.

“Morning.” He keeps his eyes on her as she skios right past the coffee and fills a plastic water bottle. 

“Going somewhere, love?”

She sits next to him on the couch, pulling a pair of red and grey sneakers on to her feet. 

“Actually, I'm going to my kickboxing class. I've missed a few days, so I thought I would get there early to warm up.”

“Is it around here? Do you need me to take you?”

“It's closer to here than it was to Neal's, believe it or not. I used to have to take the bus to get there, but from here I can just walk.”

“How did you manage to find a kickboxing class that was far enough away that you had to take the bus?”

“The owner comes into the bar, actually. She's a tall redhead, her name is Kelly. She doesn't come too often, just every once in a while. She's friends with Robin.”

“Aye, love. I know her.” He pauses. “I haven't kickboxed since I was deployed. It was something we did to blow off some steam.”

“You can come with, if you'd like. She's always looking for more people.”

He smiles at her, finishing the rest of  his tea. “You just have to promise to take it easy on me at first.”

“You know I can't promise that.”

 

It may have been almost five years since he last practiced, but it does not take him that long to pick it back up. He was one of the better ones in his unit, and in Emma he finds a good sparring partner. 

Instead of going right back to the apartment, they decide it is the perfect day to take a detour and run around the city, stopping for lunch at a small sandwich shop, then walking around the shops, picking up groceries on their way home. By the time they return to the apartment, it is well into the afternoon. 

The omelettes Killian whips up for dinner are some of the best of her life, and when she hands him the remote and tells him it is his turn to choose, he finds a World War One documentary that she is surprised to find somewhat interesting. 

When she falls asleep next to him on the couch, he carries her to the bedroom, then crawls into bed next to her, pressing a kiss against her forehead before drifting off. 

For the first night in years, both of them sleep through the night, not awoken by demons of the past.


	10. Chapter 10

Two weeks pass quietly as they begin to discover just how well their schedules work together. They take a few more kickboxing classes, a few more runs around Boston, as long as it’s not raining. Though Killian is usually awake frist, Emma is getting better at making breakfast, and on nights when they’re not at work, Killian makes dinner. She falls asleep on the couch, and he moves them into the bedroom. 

And, best of all, no one hears from Neal. 

Friday rolls around, bringing Emma back to the late night schedule she’s used to, though Killian keeps insisting more and more that he be the one to close the bar, as long as Liam agrees to be there in the morning. And despite arguing for the opposite for years, Liam begins to agree, leaving Killian and Emma alone - though none of them really seem to care, plus Emma then gets a ride home with Killian instead of taking the late-night bus. 

_ Home.  _

This is exactly what Emma is thinking about as she sweeps the floors, all of the places she has called home, most of which were far from being homes. She has not felt as comfortable as she does with Killian since before she was six, before her mother passed and threw her life to shit. 

But with Killian, she is actually happy. Comfortable. Even at Neal’s apartment, she always found herself worrying about her safety, afraid that someone would attack her while she slept, the same things she always had to worry about on the street - a feeling she has not had since she started spending the night at Killian’s. 

Her mind is so focused on this that she does not immediately hear the door open behind her. In fact, she does not even notice him until his hand is on her arm. 

“Emma,” he says, and she whips around to face him. 

“Neal, what the hell?” She pulls her arm out of his grip, stepping away from him, but she can smell the vodka on his breath. 

“Emma, I - I just came to talk.” She hears Killian push back through the kitchen doors, but she does not turn to him. She feels him behind her, close enough to feel the breath on the back of her neck. 

“What do you want, Cassidy?” he growls before Emma can respond. 

“No offense,  _ Jones _ , but I didn’t come to talk to you.”

“Better if you just hadn’t come at all.”

“Killian, it’s fine.” Without even thinking about it, she turns towards him, gently placing her hand against his stubble-covered cheek, staring up into his blazing blue eyes. “Can you give us a minute?”

With Emma’s back turned to him, Killian can see the furious look on Neal’s face, apparently not drunk enough to miss the way she touches him. And then, very purposefully, he rests his hand on her hip, flashing her a soft smile, and says, “Alright, but I’ll be just in the kitchen if you need me, darling.” 

Before turning away, he flicks his eyes up to Neal, glaring at him over Emma’s head. Call it hypermasculine of him, but damned if he was not going to show Neal that he had won. 

And when he Neal’s words through the swinging doors that lead to the kitchen, he almost turns right back around to protect her. 

But she does not need his protection. She can stand her ground.

“So, what, are you screwing him now?”

“Excuse me?”

“All it takes is two weeks for your love for me to not mean anything anymore?”

“You do remember what started this whole thing in the first place, right? You not being able to keep it in your pants?”

“Emma - “

“You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve, Neal. To come here and throw around accusations like that, with all the shit you have to answer for. At least I made damned sure that my current relationship was over before I found someone else - “

“ - So you are screwing him.”

“First of all, that’s none of your fucking business anymore - “

“ - Will you just give me a straight answer, for Christ’s sake. That’s all I came here for - “

“You came here - now - just to figure out whether I had moved on from you or not?”

“Honestly, yes. You can take time for yourself, you can move out of my apartment and ignore my calls - “

“Block your number, yes - “

“But none of that changes the fact that we are still engaged, Emma. Or have you forgotten about that ring I gave you?”

“You broke off our engagement the minute you let another woman into your bed. Into our bed.”

“If that’s the story you’re going with, then can I at least have my ring back?” He reaches out to grab her hand, planning on pointing to the ring that he assumed she still had on her finger, but when he finds her hand bare, he drops her hand, letting it fall back to her side. 

“Where’s my ring?”

“Are you really surprised I’m not wearing it anymore, given all you’ve done to me?”

“Come on, Emma, just give it back to me and I’ll leave you alone.”

“You can’t have it back.”

“Why not? Where is it?”

“It’s at the bottom of the harbor.”

For what Emma feels must be the first time in his life, Neal has no response to this. She expects bewilderment, confusion, expects him to just turn around and walk out of the bar. 

What she doesn’t expect is to feel the sting of his hand against her cheek, the warmth of her blood rushing to the spot where his hand made contact with her. 

So she does the last thing he expects: clenches her own hand into a fist and hits him square in the jaw as hard as she can.

Which is apparently pretty hard, because he crumbles to the floor at her feet.

“Emma!” She hears Killian behind her, running to her side, but she is silent.

“What do we do now?” Emma asks after a moment, neither of them taking their eyes off of Neal’s body on the floor before them.

“I say we take him out to his car, shut this place down, and go home.”

And that’s exactly what they do. Killian carries Neal out to his car with no problem. He may only be a few inches taller than Neal, but where he is all muscle, Neal is… not. Emma finds the keys for his car in his pocket and cracks the windows before Killian sets him in the front seat. 

Emma is set to follow Killian back into the bar, but instead, he fishes his keys out of his pocket and hands them to her. “I’ll lock up and be right out, love.”

But Emma barely hears his words, though her eyes are trained on his lips, on the brilliant way they seem to shine in the low light of the parking lot. She reaches out to take his hand, holding the keys between them, then turns her eyes up to meet his. She has not kissed him since the day she moved out, though the urge has been there, but she has been waiting for him to initiate, knowing he is just giving her space to heal. 

But she is done healing, done waiting. Before tonight, she was pretty sure of it; hearing Neal screaming at her, feeling the bite of his palm against her cheek, made her sure. She is ready to leave him behind, to move on from him in the same way that he was done with her before they were even over. 

Wrapping her free hand around the back of his neck, she pulls herself towards him, slamming her lips against his. He tries to keep it soft, gentle, but there is only so much he can do to avoid her advances, neglect the feeling of her tongue against his mouth, ignore the prick of her teeth biting his bottom lip, until he can refuse her no longer. With his hand on the small of her back, he pulls her closer to him, needing to feel as much of her against him as possible. 

After a while, they need to stop for air, but they do not let go of each other, foreheads pressed together, still standing in the middle of the parking lot. 

“Thank you,” she whispers, and she feels his eyebrow raise against her forehead. 

“For what?”

“For being here. For sticking with me, through everything that’s happened.”

“I’ve waited ten years, love. I’m not going anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot thank all of my incredible readers enough for everything! We're getting close to the end here, but don't worry, I have a whole pile of ideas up my sleeve for what's next! :)


	11. Chapter 11

Emma can barely make it through the door of the apartment before she is back in his arms. The car ride from the bar may have been short, but it was long enough for her to decide what she wants.

And she wants him. She does not need any more time to heal; in fact, she wants to remove every bit of Neal’s memory from her life, and that includes the marks he’s left on her skin, the ghosts of him left everywhere he has touched her.

So she pushes him against the door as he closes it behind them, her hands clutching the lapels of his leather jacket, and takes a moment to appreciate the surprise that fills his eyes before she kisses him.

“Emma, love, not that I’m complaining, but what are you doing?”

“I’m making my decision. Taking my life back. How the hell I ever thought I loved that man is beyond me, especially after tonight.”

She pulls him back to her lips, but her answer is apparently not sufficient enough for him, and he pulls away again after a minute.

“Are you sure, though? I mean, it’s only - it hasn’t been that long, and I don’t want you to rush into anything - “

“I’m not rushing into anything. If anything, I’m rushing away from something, away from what I only hope is the worst decision I ever make.”

This time, it is Killian who is overcome with the urge to kiss her, sliding his fingers into her hair and walking her across the apartment until the back of her legs crash into the couch with such force that he cannot stop them from tumbling onto it. She lets him kiss her, finally returning her velocity, running his tongue along her teeth, meeting hers with it.

He does not stop when she shifts positions on the couch, pulling him with her until he is fully on top of her.

He does not stop when she pulls off his leather jacket and tosses it on the floor next to them, but helps her remove hers.

He does not stop when she releases her fingers from his hair, sliding them down his face and his neck, over his chest and his ribs until he feels the tips of her fingers find their way under the edge of his black t-shirt; and when he feels her begin pulling it over him, he lets go long enough for her to get it over his head and hears it fall to the floor besides them, his lips already back on hers and her fingers back in his hair.

But when he feels the thick chain that holds his army ring fall between them and land on her chest, he pulls her mouth away from hers, letting his eyes fall to the piece of metal resting on her shirt.

Slowly, she runs her fingers down his cheek, his neck, through the thick hair on his chest, until she holds his ring between her fingers. Unlike Liam, he never wore his on his finger, always kept it hidden. The only other time Emma had seen it was the day he got it after his first deployment, and not since.

While he was proud of the time he served, he was always upset that it was what he had to do to save himself from the life that found them. All Killian ever wanted to do was be with his brother, to live a happy life and not have to worry about where his next meal came from. He never wanted to kill anyone, never wanted to do any of the extremes that the army sent him to. She watches him, watches the thoughts swim around his head, his eyes fixed on the ring in her hand.

“I didn’t realize you still wore this.” Her voice is soft but still thick with lust, unable to cover it up.

“I never take it off, actually. It’s a reminder of every damned thing I had to do to keep myself off the streets, the decisions I had to make to save myself. Everything I sacrificed.”

When she finds his lips with hers again, it is to comfort him, unsure of what else to say. She knows of what he did, of his regrets, and seeing the memories of them come flooding back to him hurts her in a deeper way than she would have thought possible even a few days before.

“I thought I lost you, Emma. I thought the choices I made ruined every chance I had with you, and I didn’t think I would ever be able to forgive myself. Seeing you with him, even when you were happy, hurt more than anything that happened to me over there. It’s one thing to make a decision to save yourself from a life on the streets, but it’s something else entirely to do it for someone else and leave without telling them, only to come back and learn the hard way that their life continued without them.”

She is overcome by the overwhelming urge to kiss him, to comfort him and hold him until he is sure that she will never leave, but something stops her - an idea. Instead, she reaches around the back of his head and releases the clasp, letting the chain and the ring fall into her outstretched hand before she reaches out and sets it on the coffee table, hoping the action will be sufficient enough to show him how she feels.

His eyes follow her hand to the table as she slides the ring onto the wood, then meet her eyes again as her hand returns to the back of his neck.

“You really are something incredible, Swan,” he says before tightening his embrace around her once more, kissing her with a different kind of fervor than before as he slides his hands under the bottom of her shirt, wanting to feel her skin against his. “And if you’ll let me, I would really like to prove it to you.”

“I want nothing more than that, really.” She smiles up at him, sitting up just enough to let him pull her shirt over her head. Leaving a trail down her neck from where he kissed her, he unclasps her bra behind her back with ease, sliding the straps down her arms just far enough to uncover her breasts, which he immediately covers with his hands, running his thumbs over her already-hardened nipples for just a moment before he covers one with his mouth, gently nipping it with his teeth, which invokes a soft moan from somewhere deep within her.

He continues his trail of kisses down her stomach, looking up at her over the swells of her breasts as he unsnaps her jeans, feeling her kick off her shoes behind him, then follows them down her leg as he slides them off. Every touch of his lips to her skin sends soft shivers down her spine, and she feels them begin to pool behind her stomach as he makes his way back up the inside of her thigh.

But he stops when he reaches her stomach again, only teasing the top of her bright red underwear before sitting back up, then standing next to her, her eyes glued to his every move.

“I think this would be more appropriate for the bedroom.” His thick voice is more of a growl now, but he reaches his hand towards her. When she stands next to him, he pulls her back into his arms, and she jumps on to him, wrapping her legs around his waist. She can feel the hardness of him through his jeans, and she longs to feel him within her.

When he sets her on the bed, her hands immediately search the darkness between them to find the button on his jeans, then the zipper, helping them fall to the floor, and he kicks out of them before climbing back on top of her.

Now she can feel him against her, their eyes adjusting to the darkness of the bedroom, the two of them only separated by a few stupid layers of thin fabric, but when she tries to remove them, he slides away from her reach, running his lips down her body again - and this time when he reaches the fabric of her underwear, he does not stop to do any more than remove it.

She starts to call out his name, but is stopped abruptly by the feeling of his lips against her clit, and all that escapes her lips is a soft, breathy moan, one that is repeated when his tongue darts out and presses against her, a flash of cold against the warmth of her, and she feels the tip of one of his fingers against her entrance. The experience of his going down on her is a new one, and quickly overwhelms her, especially with the added assistance of his fingers inside her. She never wants him to stop, a sentiment that she cannot hold inside her, and it is not long as all before he feels her rocking against his fingers and his mouth, riding him through her orgasm, until he pulls himself away again, his mouth wet with her heat as he kisses his way back up to her lips.

Tangling her fingers in his hair, she kisses him breathlessly, his erection rubbing her through his underwear, which she then reaches down to remove. Even in the high she is still riding, she needs him to fill her, and it is her turn to take the lead. Rolling them on the bed, she straddles him, feeling the slickness of him against her, and she leans down and kisses him, rubbing him with her wet folds.

Before she can move herself to slide over him, she hears his voice, shaking with his want for her, and his words surprise her. “Emma, love, if this isn’t what you want, then just tell me. Don’t do it for me if you’re not ready.”

She leans down to him, meeting his lips with hers before she whispers, “I want this, Killian. I want you. Hell, right now I _need_ you.” And she kisses him again, leading him towards her entrance.

This time, he does not stop her, moaning against her lips as he fills her up. She feels the heat starting again within her, and she moves her hips with him to help him reach the deepest parts of her. With her hands against his chest, running her fingers through his thick, dark chest hair, she does not feel his hand move until it is against her, his thumb rubbing against her nerves again, in time with the movement his hips. With a lover that pays as much attention to her as Killian does, she finishes with him inside of her long before he does, which just gives her the chance to appreciate it longer - and even when he finds his release within her, he cannot stop worshipping her body, needing to discover everything about her that he has gone without for the past ten years

At his hands, she is putty, gasping with his every move like she is a teenager again, experiencing everything for the first time; and in a way, she is. In Killian’s bed, she discovers things about herself that were previously locked away, things that Neal never bothered to search for - simple things, like how the backs of her legs grow ticklish after she has finished, or just how damn much she enjoys the feeling of his tongue playing with her nipples. Together, they learn more about her in one night then Neal managed to learn in six years, Killian doing all he can to pleasure her, to learn the curves and cravings of her body until they fall asleep together, a tangled mess in the sheets that finally drift off as the city begins to wake for the morning.


End file.
